DWC maintenance and water change

[FlyinNumb]

New to the site and planning a grow. So I have been thinking about a RDWC with 3 5 gallon buckets. One as the res and 2 with plants. 2 pressure lines coming from the res to the top side of the plant buckets spraying the roots and air stones at the bottom. The return line would keep the plant buckets even with the res. (in theory). Thoughts??

What would be the maintenance on the water?? Would you add to to keep the PH and Nutes right?? How often would you change out the water/Nutes if there was a constant circulation.

Thanks for your reviews.

 

[Bangabong]

You may want to look at this link Hydroponic Gardening or try typing in a query in the search box. I do DWC, but I have never tried the setup you are talking about. It sounds interesting, although you may want to test run it outside to make sure you don't ruin a floor or short out anything. Hope this helps!

 

[chenzi]

Plenty to read here bud !! If this is your first go at this RDWC thing, be ready to lose everything and start again !! Maybe try coco or soil first ?
Pretty steep learning curve with rdwc.......
Good luck.

 

[Retireegrower]

Plenty to read here bud !! If this is your first go at this RDWC thing, be ready to lose everything and start again !! Maybe try coco or soil first ?
Pretty steep learning curve with rdwc.......
Good luck.

Boy, @chenzi you said a mouthful right there. I wish I would have gotten this advice (and followed it) before i jumped in the deep end of the RDWC pool. And I agree 100% about the "be ready to lose everything and start again". I'm there, I'm ready. Hoping I don't, but will chalk it up to the learning curve if I do. I'm only 19 days in so far, and "so far, so good". More or less.
Anyhow, anybody else thinking about trying RDWC as their first grow (or 1st grow in the last 40 years) should really consider this mans advice seriously.

 

[Zeefarmer]

New to the site and planning a grow. So I have been thinking about a RDWC with 3 5 gallon buckets. One as the res and 2 with plants. 2 pressure lines coming from the res to the top side of the plant buckets spraying the roots and air stones at the bottom. The return line would keep the plant buckets even with the res. (in theory). Thoughts??

What would be the maintenance on the water?? Would you add to to keep the PH and Nutes right?? How often would you change out the water/Nutes if there was a constant circulation.

Thanks for your reviews.

Some where in my plants life cycle they average using 4 or more gallons of water per day per plant for weeks if not months.
To make the water last for a week you need a 20 gallon reservoir per plant, un less your into refilling your reservoirs 3 or 4 times per day?

 

[Wastei]

Some where in my plants life cycle they average using 4 or more gallons of water per day per plant for weeks if not months.
To make the water last for a week you need a 20 gallon reservoir per plant, un less your into refilling your reservoirs 3 or 4 times per day?

I think OP was asking about maintenance and frequency of reservoir change, not how often to top off the reservoir and the reservoir volume?

To answer OP question (on a very old and dead thread) its recommended to do top offs during the week with diluted nutrient solution and a complete reservoir change after 10-14 days depending on reservoir size to help keep mineral ratios in range.

You should always aim to oversize the reservoir to keep pH, EC and water level as constant as possible in ideal circumstances running DWC. Aim for the lower optimal in terms of nutrient strength. I often maxed out at only running 1.2 EC in flower. Aim for a pH range of 5.5-6.3.

It's better to run medium size plants and more of them instead of a big plant in DWC, both in terms of turn around time and stability. It's a big risk of running in to rot in the middle of the main tap root being covered in excess roots running very big plants.

But the most important things about maintenance in water cultures are preventative measures against pathogens and bad bacteria cultures. It's not a matter of if but when you will run in to problem without running a water chiller in the loop without running oxidizers.

The best approach in my opinion for someone living in the states is investing in a water chiller and a proper fungicide like SouthernAG Garden Friendly fungicide. It's more potent than "Hydroguard" that contain the same strain of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. People had better results running a low concentrations/dosage.

Another approach is going the oxidizer route using either hydrogen peroxide or sodium hypochlorite(bleach). I have the calculator in my signature to use regular unscented bleach in hydroponics.

Hope that helps someone starting out!

Cheers!